


Inevitable

by softmoonlight



Series: Whumptober 2020 [12]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game), Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Enemies to Enemies, F/F, Genocide, I have no idea how to rate, Is that a thing, Murder, Post-Order 66 (Star Wars), Pre-Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Rare Pairings, Violence, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020, all the sith-y things, evil flirting, if at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:28:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27193783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softmoonlight/pseuds/softmoonlight
Summary: A final confrontation and some harsh truths.
Relationships: Trilla Suduri | Second Sister/Ahsoka Tano
Series: Whumptober 2020 [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1952500
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36
Collections: Whumptober, Whumptober 2020





	Inevitable

**Author's Note:**

> Reposted from earlier this year bc I freaked out and deleted it, but realized bc it's pretty angsty I could cheat and fit it in with one of the prompts after fixing it up a little.
> 
> Day 22 prompts: poisoned | **drugged** | withdrawal
> 
> Warning for slight creepiness since they're not actually together.

“And so we meet again.”

A younger, pre-Empire Ahsoka Tano would have rolled her eyes at such a dramatic pronouncement. Perhaps even remarked something about unoriginality and melodrama. She’s tempted, certainly, even now, but she can also recognize her disadvantage here.

Current Ahsoka simply ignites both lightsabers and brings them into the familiar reverse grip in one fluid motion. She squares her shoulders, releasing the storm of emotions—sadness, disbelief, fear, rage—into the Force. How had she let herself be startled this way, and in such a limited space, too?

As always, she faces her enemy with her head held high, her eyes defiant, in them burning the unspoken promise that if she is going to die, it will not be quietly.

The familiar helmet regards her in return. The metal glints in the eerie red light of her saber, and the responding white of Ahsoka’s threatens to be drowned out by the oppressive color. The otherwise pitch-black darkness of the abandoned facility around them does nothing but underscore how truly unsettling she looks.

The dance begins.

“You should have known I would catch you eventually,” announces the Second Sister, starting to prowl along the nearest wall in a wide arc.

Ahsoka automatically turns in tandem with her movements, not wanting to turn her back on her opponent in even the smallest way.

“You haven’t actually caught me yet,” she counters, with a small derisive huff at the sheer arrogance she always spits.

Her eyes lock on the Inquisitor, but her mind is occupied inventorying possible escapes. Hopefully this posturing will buy enough time.

Three entryways; therefore, three hallways. Her montrals twitch, echolocating for weak points in the walls. This place is falling apart, so there must be something she can use as a distraction. Then she can run. 

“Haven’t I?” asks the Second Sister, helmet tilting dangerously. “Tell me, Ahsoka Tano—why are you here?”

Immediately wary of the leading question, Ahsoka narrows her eyes. But to avoid giving away the fact that she’s sensed an ungrounded power line directly to her left, she answers anyway.

“I heard…” she begins, tonelessly. Her grip on her left lightsaber shifts, fingers twitching on the handle as imperceptibly as she can manage while still using the Force, guiding the wire toward the wrong circuit, “that there were survivors.”

There’s a mocking click of the tongue. “And you came to help them. Even if it could be a trap.”

Ahsoka shudders. She _wishes_ it had been a trap. What she’d found was much, much worse. There'd been Jedi, all right. Just not living ones.

The sight of their dead bodies will be seared into her memory now and forever.

“Yes…” hisses the Second Sister, seizing on her turmoil, “That must have been very upsetting to see.”

Something clicks as she feels her watching her. The wire slips out of her grasp.

“ _You_ killed them.” 

The moment she says it, the Force confirms the truth.

“All for you,” replies Second Sister, saccharinely sweet, letting the multiple implications of that dangle in the air. 

All the breath leaves Ahsoka’s lungs. 

But the other woman is not done twisting the viroblade. 

“You hoped it was a coincidence. You needed it to be. But deep down, you knew it wasn’t.”

Abruptly, the Second Sister stalks forward, Force swirling around her in serpentine tendrils. Ahsoka blocks the aggressive overhead strike in just enough time. She strains, shifting both blades to try and push her back, but the shoto was caught at a bad angle and it _hurts_. The Second Sister growls and bears down harder, trying to fracture Ahsoka’s grip.

“Outstanding,” she drawls.

Then, just as quickly, the pressure is gone, and the sudden lack of resistance upsets her balance. The Second Sister launches at her with a vengeance from what feels like multiple angles because of how fast and quickly contracted the swipes are, despite Ahsoka being the one with two lightsabers. 

She scrambles to keep up, and she curses herself. If she hadn’t been so fucking _distracted_ earlier—

They trade strikes in earnest, a whirlwind of flashing and blocking and stabbing that forces her to improvise rather than fall into old patterns. Her opponents are no longer droids that can be taken out with a single strategy, but instead living, breathing sentients that are just as unpredictable as she.

But even with that considered, Ahsoka starts to drive her back. 

With every move she makes, she sees the dead bodies outside rather than the person she’s fighting. She may have been too upset by the discovery to notice Second Sister coming, but she can _do_ this. She’s already the reason the Sixth Brother is dead, after all, not that anyone else knows that. And, she notes with vicious pleasure when the other is cornered into switching to defensive strikes, she’s a _d_ _amn_ good duelist.

Not everyone is as defenseless as the others unfortunately were. She will remind this wannabe Sith of that.

“What was that about catching me?” she manages to snark.

Of course, this was probably the wrong thing to say. The Second Sister snarls and rears back, and Ahsoka watches in mingled disbelief and vague horror as she rolls out of the way and up into a kneeling stance. As she rises, Second Sister ignites the other end of the spinning blade, angling it floor to ceiling, and charges.

She’d gambled on her not doing that in such a tight space, Ahsoka realizes a second too late. She tries to block, and nearly does, but then there’s a completely artless jab thrown at her shoulder, which, while leaving the Inquisitor wide open, also forces Ahsoka to dodge instead.

And she stumbles.

Second Sister jumps on the critical mistake, surging forward. Ahsoka scrambles once more, barely staving off both ends of the saber with both blades, double horizontal against the single vertical. 

She’s lost too much ground, though, and her elbows are now bent back so awkwardly that she’s lost the maneuvering advantages of her dual blades and reverse grip. It only takes a second for the Second Sister to push the advantage and crowd her against the wall. 

Her back collides against the steel with a final, damning _thump_ , and Ahsoka’s left with nothing to do but stare into those unfathomable red slits over the light of their crossed blades. 

For a moment, they just stare at each other, chests heaving. Ahsoka pushes with all her effort to hold the red lightsaber at bay, knowing she’s finished if she yields.

“You knew it wasn’t a coincidence,” repeats the Second Sister after a moment, “which is why you stayed here far longer than you needed to, increasing the chances you’d be found.”

She hates the accuracy of her words. Because she _had_ done exactly that.

Because she had to disturb their spirits to try and glean the truth from their echoes. Which is why she sequestered herself in here when their emotions became too much—and why she didn’t notice the other presence until it was too late.

Despite herself, tears spring to her eyes. How could she have been so stupid? She feels like a fourteen-year-old girl in the space over Ryloth again, responsible for the deaths of so many clones under her first command because she was reckless and overestimated her abilities.

And still, the Second Sister is not finished. “I know this because you, like all Jedi, are predictable. And I predicted accurately.”

“Not a Jedi,” she corrects automatically, but it’s a protest without any heart. She would have returned to the Order, eventually, but the Empire _took_ that choice from her.

“Your weakness is more noble than most,” the Inquisitor continues, voice quiet. Ahsoka can’t tell if she’s being mocked or not, which is unusual based on every encounter she’s had with her.

Then it gets even stranger.

One gloved hand releases the lightsaber, leaving the other to hold the single grip in the middle, and reaches out, tracing her cheek. Ahsoka jerks, but the hand stays firmly on her jaw. She makes herself go still—focus on the words, to understand _what the hell is happening._ “Even with everything gone, and every sentient out for themselves, you don’t just care about yourself, but the collective. Your people. So when you went on their trail, I found them first.”

Bile rises in her throat. Five people, among the last surviving Jedi in the galaxy, who probably would have been perfectly fine otherwise, killed because she led death directly to them.

Without warning, she feels a sharp prick on her cheek. She gasps, but with her arms pinned where they are, she can’t reach up to inspect it.

Then her arms start to go numb, and despite the panic that races through her, she very suddenly can’t move at all. Her mind is racing but her body is paralyzed. She screams at herself to move, to do anything, pushes with everything she has, and nothing moves. Her ’sabers deactivate and clatter to the floor, leaving her alone in the dark with the red glow and its owner.

The hand moves from her jaw to her side, supporting her when her legs give way and she slides down the wall. Her mouth chokes out a few aborted protests. 

“Shhh…”

With everything else from the neck down paralyzed, Ahsoka glares as fiercely as she can. The Second Sister chuckles softly and leans back on her knees. One hand remains on the lightsaber, which is once more single-sided and now functioning as little more than a glowrod, but the other leaves her side and moves to the helmet.

Ahsoka spots the hypospray she withdraws and curses softly, a string of fluent Tatooine-brand Huttese she picked up from Anakin ages ago.

When the helmet comes off with a snap-hiss right after she makes this connection, Ahsoka’s ashamed at the surprised interest she automatically feels upon taking in her face—human, green eyes, dark hair, dark skin. Attractive.

Probably about her age. Meaning if she was once a Jedi, they may have served in the Order together. 

But even if they had, her face is, mercifully, not one Ahsoka recognizes. After everything she’s lost, she can’t bear the thought of someone she knew turning out to be one of these vipers hiding behind masks. They’d be better off dead.

Ahsoka schools her expression back into a glare at the thought. A face instead of a helmet does not mean a new treatment. _This_ face is the one responsible for many of those deaths.

She killed her friends. Her family. And she massacred a slew of the survivors just to get at Ahsoka.

The Second Sister leans forward again, but without the helmet, it’s far more personal. If she could move, Ahsoka would stiffen, but she can’t do anything as she leans in and puts her lips almost directly against her ear. 

“You are caught because you’ve already _been_ caught,” she’s whispers, breath hot and breathy against her skin. She hates the slightly thrilled shiver that runs down her spine. “The moment I found out your weakness, it was inevitable. It always is.”

Ahsoka decides, very consciously, to make the dangerous quip she says next. Speaking is the only resistance she has left. “Are you talking about yourself, or...the Empire?”

_Did they find out_ your _weakness?_

The Second Sister draws back and regards her, a dark expression contorting her features. 

“There is no weakness with the Dark. You’ll learn that too.” She pauses, and Ahsoka stews on the revelation that she doesn’t intend to kill her. “It is inevitable,” she says again, and it’s as though she’s imploring Ahsoka to understand something.

Ahsoka shakes her head. “I’ll never turn.”

“They all do, in the end.”

She looks down, and Ahsoka follows her gaze. She’s holding her hand, she realizes with a jolt.

Ahsoka watches helplessly as she pricks the skin again.

As unconsciousness pulls her under, she hears the words, much softer spoken than any of the rest, “I did.”

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously later, circa Rebels-era Ahsoka would hand Trilla her ass in combat, but this is younger Ahsoka, probably only a few years post-rots, and she's not the collected woman we see there yet. She's also proven that she doesn't do well with mind games (see: instant rage when Maul mentions Anakin in the Siege of Mandalore arc), which Trilla excels at, so she's even more off her game here.


End file.
